Typhoid Margaret
by perpetual.self
Summary: October, 2010: With students falling like flies to the contagious, if not deadly, Greendale Ick, Annie gets stuck taking care of Jeff, who isn't exactly a pliant patient. Awkwardness, hijinks, and inappropriate situations ensue. Jeff/Annie, COMPLETE
1. Friday

_Friday_

Annie finished highlighting the last topic heading on the last page of Thursday's Anthropology notes, snapped her marker shut, and slid the stapled pages across the study room table to Troy. "Here you go," she said with a smile.

He raised his head off of his folded arms. "Thanks, Annie," he wheezed painfully, before dropping his head back down with a muffled thud.

Abed watched him with a concerned expression.

"I'm still not sure if it was a good idea for you to come back to classes today," Annie said as she sorted her highlighters back into ROY G BIV order in their packet.

"It wasn't," Pierce growled from behind his protective mask. "The Greendale Ick can't be escaped that easy. He's still contagious."

Britta rolled her eyes. "The mask is stupid, Pierce. Hundreds of students are sick, but you only put it on now to protect yourself from Troy? You don't even see Leonard being so paranoid."

"Leonard has the immune system of a goat." Shirley sounded disgusted. "Something's not right about that."

"Are goats known for having superior immune systems?" Abed puzzled.

Pierce drew himself up and attempted dignity in spite of his white shield. "My mother's coming for the weekend, and it's my duty to remain well so that I don't compromise her health. She's older, you know. Fragile."

Troy moaned delicately from his semi-prone position, drawing attention back to himself. "My throat hurts so bad! Man, I wish I had some orange juice."

Abed jumped to his feet. "I got it, Troy. Hold on." He sprinted off toward the vending machine down the hall, and Troy slumped more comfortably into his seat, wearing a pleased expression.

Annie gave a pitying "Awww," but Shirley was squinting at Troy suspiciously.

"Why do all men do that when they're sick? Doesn't matter their age, they just _know_."

"Do what?" Annie asked.

"The 'poor me, I'm at death's door' act. Elijah and Jordan both do it. It's cute now, but when they're older?" Shirley shook her head and scowled. "Their father was worst of all. One head cold and he'd be rolling around in agony for days, moaning and whining and having me spoon ice cream down his throat."

"Hey!" Troy protested, livelier now that his honor was being impugned. "I'm really sick! It was brave of me to even come to class, Annie and Abed said so!"

Shirley ignored him. "Women don't do that. We're strong. We suffer in silence."

Annie pursed her lips dubiously at Shirley's last sentence, but said nothing. She did notice that Britta had edged her chair away from the table, and was stealthily shoving things into the bag at her feet.

"Britta, are you leaving?" she asked. "We haven't even started on this week's study guide."

Britta winced and dropped her notebook back on the table. "I guess not."

"Is something wrong?"

"It's just - " she closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. "Sick people creep me out. Everyone's sick on campus, and now Troy's sick, and I really, _really_ do not want to catch this stuff. My cats need me! If I'm not around to feed them, they'll starve! I have to think of my responsibilities here."

Shirley looked as if she was ready to share some choice thoughts on the relative differences between taking care of stray cats and taking care of human children, but thought again and kept her mouth resolutely closed.

Pierce shrugged, and with a whisper, confided to the rest of the table, "She's probably afraid that if she gets sick and dies her cats will eat her because it'll take so long for someone to notice."

Britta goggled in speechless rage, but the moment was diffused by Abed re-entering the study room, arms laden with cans and bottles. "They didn't have orange juice, so I brought apple. And Mountain Dew, because I think it has orange juice in it. And Sprite, for the lemon-lime kick. I think if we mix all these together in the correct proportions, we might get an approximation of orange juice that would be suitable for the situation."

Troy brightened at the prospect of impromptu mixology, and Annie tamped down the urge to tell him that caffeine wasn't the best choice for someone who was sick. "I like taking care of sick people," she admitted. "When my father felt bad when I was little, I'd make him jello and bring him things to drink, then I'd sit by his bed and read the _Wall Street Journal_ to him. For a while, I thought I might want to be a nurse or a doctor because I enjoyed it so much." She basked for a moment in the warm glow of nostalgia.

"That's so nice!" Shirley patted her hand. "I hope you never have to take care of someone who's messing from both ends and can't be cured by jello, though. I think it would ruin it for you."

Annie acknowledged Shirley's response with some confusion before glancing down at her watch, fretting. "Where's Jeff? He's twenty minutes late now."

Britta groaned. "Oh, who knows." She and Jeff might have reconciled after the disaster in May, but that didn't mean that she had to take his foibles with grace.

The rest of the group was also unaware of the undefined limbo in which Annie and Jeff had taken residence. Nothing had come of their kiss, but the memory hadn't strayed far from the forefront of Annie's mind, either. The group's friendship continued uninjured, however, and for the time being that was the most important thing to her.

Jeff chose that moment to shamble through the glass doors of the study room. He looked wretched: shirt wrinkled and untucked, unshaven, eyes red-rimmed and bleary, and hair that had gone far past "bed-head" and strayed into "irredeemably disheveled" territory.

"Hard night, eh Winger?" Pierce asked, sounding impressed. "Which clubs did you hit? I'm going out this weekend and could use some tips."

"With your _mother_?" asked Troy, revived by Abed's vending machine offerings.

Jeff didn't respond to Pierce, and dropped into his chair, looking straight ahead with an unfocused, glassy stare.

"Is something wrong, Jeff?" Annie leaned forward. "I don't think he's hung over," she said to the rest of the group.

He didn't respond to her, but instead glared at Troy.

"What?" Troy said.

Jeff seemed to be mustering his strength. Finally, in a dark and accusing tone he rasped out, "Special Drink."

Troy hunched over and pulled a face. "Ah. Oops. My bad."

Shirley was bewildered. "Would someone like to explain what's going on here?"

"I think I can," Abed said. "Wednesday morning, before Troy knew he was really sick? We were in here," (he cast a wary glance at Shirley and spoke more quickly) "recreating the Last Supper with Special Drink."

"_What_?" Shirley demanded.

"Not in a disrespectful way!" Abed insisted. "In a tribute to _Battlestar Galactica_. And _The Simpsons_. And _The Sopranos_. They all did promos based on the Da Vinci painting, you know."

"Let me guess, you all shared one cup of Special Drink?" Britta asked.

"Yes."

"You drank first, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Crafty little Arab devil," Pierce said admiringly.

It was at that point that the group's conversation deteriorated into chaos, with Britta chiding Pierce, Abed trying to explain the difference between irreverence and artistic tribute to Shirley, and Troy coughing intermittently, attempting to elicit sympathy in spite of the fact that he had infected Jeff with the Greendale Ick.

Annie sighed and collated the rest of her Anthropology notes. She looked over at Jeff, who had closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of his chair. "Why did you come in today if you're sick?" she asked quietly. "You should've stayed at home."

He cracked an eye open and rolled his neck so that he could see her. "I knew you'd kill me if I missed a group meeting."

"I like to think I'd have let you off just once." She smiled down at her notebook.

"Nah, you're ferocious." Jeff tried to smirk, but ended up having a coughing spasm which only subsided when he noisily hocked into a kleenex Annie had produced from her backpack.

That got everyone's attention. Britta said, "Maybe you should go home, Jeff," her lip curling in disgust as he expressed more snot.

"I'm here to learn, Britta," Jeff said with a bravado that would have been more impressive if he hadn't had wisps of kleenex clinging to his stubble.

In spite of his declaration, before the end of the study session, Jeff had retired to the sofa, where he snored for the rest of the hour.

Abed and Troy drifted over to look down at him. "He sounds like he's drowning in his own mucus," said Troy, who was long past feeling guilty about infecting Jeff.

Abed withdrew a pocket watch on a chain from somewhere on his person, flipped it open, and took Jeff's pulse at the wrist.

"How's he doing?"

Abed shrugged. "Don't know. I've just always wanted to do that."

The rest of the group joined Troy and Abed, circling around the sofa. "I don't want to feel too bad for him, since he brought this on himself with his own childish, disrespectful shenanigans," Shirley said, "but he is pitiful."

"We shouldn't let him be alone," Troy nodded. "My uncle owns a ranch, and he always says that if a cow wanders off by itself, it's either sick or dying. Or having a baby. But anyway, can't let them be away from the herd."

Jeff opened his eyes. "I am neither dying nor calving, and I resent being compared to a straying cow. Even if I am dying, this isn't my ideal final view, with your morbid faces looming over me."

"_Buenos dias, muchachos_!" Ben Chang flung himself through the doors of the study room, strident tones muffled from behind a full Hazmat suit.

"Lay off the Spanish, we all know you're a fraud," Pierce grumbled while eying Chang's suit with jealousy.

"You've already tried the grand entrance thing, haven't you?" Britta added.

"Dude, what happens if you fart in that suit?" Troy asked with mingled disgust and interest.

Annie, who had never quite gotten over her guilt about getting Chang fired, attempted to inject some positivity into the conversation. "When's your next concert planned, Ben?"

"Not until the plague times are over." He rang an imaginary bell. "Bring out your dead! Did Winger succumb? Need me to haul off his carcass?"

Jeff, who had risen up to watch Chang's entrance, lapsed back onto the couch. "I can't deal with this right now," he muttered.

Chang got into Jeff's personal bubble, shoving the plastic shield over his face right against Jeff's. "Yep, he's got it bad. Swollen mucous membranes, congested lungs, the works. I'll take him off your hands before he infects the rest of you."

Jeff was wriggling around the couch, coughing violently as he attempted to escape the smaller man's onslaught. He looked so helpless that Annie stepped behind Chang and put a hand on his shoulder. "We've got him, but thanks."

"Fine." Chang backed off. "Have fun with your very own Typhoid Mary."

That triggered something in Annie's memory. "Didn't you have a date on Tuesday night with the new cheerleader, Troy? Margaret somebody?"

"Yeah."

"Nice work!" Chang high-fived him.

"Well, wasn't she the girl who got taken to the emergency room Wednesday morning because she was so sick and dehydrated?"

"Yeah." He was still oblivious.

"Troy! She had to have been sick already on Tuesday night! Please tell me she just breathed on you or something."

"Nope, we totally made out. She was kind of coughing and spitting, though. Slimy."

"Ew!"

A chorus of assent backed Annie up, and Chang headed for the nearest exit.

"Unsafe and disgusting!" he said as a farewell. "You'll all go down, mark my words!"

As the group began preparations to leave, Annie lingered beside Jeff, looking down at him uncertainly. He had dozed back off after Chang had left, and he was moving fitfully on the couch in his sleep. "Everyone?" Annie asked. "Do you think we should let him go home alone?"

"Eh, he'll be fine," Pierce waved, his mind obviously already on his mother's impending visit.

Britta looked guilty, but moved closer to the door. "He's probably fine, Annie. He's lived alone for years. I'm sure a weekend feeling like crap won't do him permanent damage. We'll check on him on Monday."

"Uh, hello? No classes on Monday!" Troy rejoiced. "In-service!"

"I am sorry, Annie. I just can't." Mumbling something about her cats, Britta fled.

Annie turned to Shirley with a pleading look.

"No, huh-uh." Shirley shook her head so emphatically that her earrings slapped against her cheeks. "I can't expose Elijah and Jordan to this stuff."

"Abed? Troy?" They were her last resort. "Don't you care about Jeff? Abed took care of you when you were sick, Troy. Imagine if you'd been alone!"

"He'd be welcome to stay in the dorm, but there's not much room now that Troy's with me, and I have an intensive documentary film making course all weekend. I'll help you check up on him, though."

"Did you ask if he wants us butting in?" asked Troy, peering over the back of the couch at Jeff. "He's kind of a private guy. Has anyone even been to his apartment?"

"I have," Abed replied.

"What? When was that?" Troy and Annie spoke almost in unison.

"This summer. I visited a few times and we watched movies. He seemed down, especially right after classes ended."

Annie took that in, then bent over Jeff. "Jeff. Do you want help getting home?"

He didn't answer, but pulled his car keys out of his pocket and held them out.

"Okay, he's really sick," Troy announced. Shirley and Pierce walked over.

"See!" Annie said. "Someone has to help him!"

"I don't know why this is an issue," Shirley said. "You're the one who was telling us all about how much you like taking care of sick people."

"Sounds good to me. You don't have any responsibilities or people who depend on you, either," Pierce added callously.

"I think it's the best option," Abed nodded.

"Jeff, if you die, can I have your car?" Troy asked, on his way out.

"No!" Jeff barked from the couch, opening his eyes and scowling.

"You don't want a car that old. It's a depreciating asset," Pierce confided as the two left the room.

Annie reached out for Jeff's keys, but he held them back. "It's stick," he said.

"I can drive it," she replied with her best 'don't underestimate my abilities' voice. A European sports car with a manual transmission had accompanied her father's mid-life crisis.

He relinquished the keys.

"Did you drive to school today, Annie?" Abed asked.

"No, I took the bus."

"Cool. When you think Jeff's okay alone, text me and I'll pick you up and drive you home."

"Thank you, Abed."

"No problem."

In the parking lot, Jeff collapsed into the passenger seat of the Lexus, but watched Annie critically as she pulled out of the parking lot and merged into traffic. Satisfied that she wasn't going to skip a gear or stall in the middle of the road, he subsided into a sniffly silence, speaking only to give her directions.

When they arrived in front of his unprepossessing apartment building, he said, "You don't need to stay, you know. You can text Abed as soon as we get inside."

Annie set the parking break, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and smoothed her skirt. "As long as I think you're okay by yourself."

"I have a cold, not hantavirus."

"So did the cheerleader you and Troy got this from. Now she's in the hospital, and there's no telling how many classes she'll miss!"

"Yeah, gotta keep priorities in mind." He rolled his eyes.

She followed Jeff up a set of exterior steps into his second-floor apartment, then hung back as he disappeared into the bathroom. The apartment was tiny, with a combined living room, kitchen, and seating area, and doors leading into the bathroom and bedroom.

Annie trailed her fingers down a long sofa upholstered in thick, pebbled leather. It and a few other incongruous items were stranded in the austere, utilitarian apartment: a large flatscreen television; a gleaming espresso maker shoved in amongst a litter of cheap appliances; and glimpsed through the bedroom door, a California king-sized bed that left only a few feet of space around its periphery in the small room. All were, she supposed, remnants of Jeff's pre-Greendale life. Aside from a few framed prints of modernistic drips and blots, the walls were bare, and the room was devoid of photographs or other personal touches.

Knowing she shouldn't, but unable to contain her curiosity, she walked over to the refrigerator and peeked in. It contained a bottle of yellow mustard, an empty carton of orange juice, and a jumbo canister of whey protein. The freezer, equally lacking in food suitable for a convalescent, held only a bottle of vodka and an overflow of ice. Emboldened, she flipped open the kitchen cabinets to find a box of saltine crackers, a can of condensed milk, and a sealed jar of maraschino cherries.

The bathroom door opened.

Now Annie was on a mission. She marched into the bedroom, where Jeff had flung himself face-down on the bed (which, she noticed, hadn't been properly made up). "Do you have any decongestants or cold medications to take?" she demanded.

"Mmph." He turned his head so that it wasn't smushed into a pillow. "No. Just aspirin."

"There's no food in here, either. Honestly, Jeff, how do you expect to get better?" She folded her arms across her chest and brought one of her feet down forcefully for emphasis.

He winced. "Don't stomp. Or shout."

Annie frowned, but lowered her voice. "Well?"

"I don't know! Takeout? I haven't died yet."

"Were you this cavalier about your health when you were a lawyer? I thought you had to bill a certain number of hours and appear in court. I do know that next week you have an Anthropology quiz on Tuesday and a Calculus exam on Thursday, and you need to get better over the weekend, not worse."

"Okay, fine." Jeff rolled over onto his side, pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, and peeled out a fifty, which he handed to her. "Go buy what you think I need, Florence."

Annie took the bill from him, and stared at it for a moment stupidly. "Really?"

"Yes, really. I can tell I'm the latest project you've taken on for whatever misguided reason, so go do what you need to do. God knows I can't stop you." He turned his head back into the pillow, so his next words were muffled. "Or resist you."

"What?"

He pulled the other pillow over his head.

Annie collected Jeff's car keys from the dinette table where he'd tossed them, and as she accelerated out of the parking lot, she considered her next move. Fifty dollars wouldn't stretch far for decongestants and completely stocking a kitchen. Her mother had a medicine cabinet kept full with every conceivable cure for the common cold, but even a few tablets or bottles missing would mean a panic and accusations of a relapse. Not that her parents were home to notice immediately – they were off for a weekend golf retreat, leaving Annie the run of the house, the use of her mother's car, and the expectation that her days off would be spent cloistered with her textbooks.

Abandoning any Whole Foods visions of sustainable paper goods and organic produce, Annie found a Wal-Mart and bought basic ingredients for a few simple meals. As she threw more boxes of kleenex into her cart, she realized that the thrill she was getting out of planning and organizing was being overshadowed by a pang of regret: at this point in her life, she should have been shopping for her own apartment or dorm.

Still, it wasn't half bad, curled up later on Jeff's amazing sofa, doing homework and keeping an eye on the chicken noodle soup she was making. Even Jeff's somnolent presence in the next room was a comfort, and it was all too easy to drift into a daydream of having a place of her own, attending a real university, and living with a pleasant, attentive (not smart-mouthed, not sarcastic) boyfriend. Not Jeff, though. Definitely not Jeff. She had promised herself she would never start having the childish, borderline-creepy fantasies about him she'd harbored so long for Troy, and if the shadowy boyfriend in her imagination happened to be taller than average, well built, and with a carefully-tousled head of hair, that was just the result of being indoctrinated by too many of the kind of women's magazines that Britta liked to condemn.

Above all, Annie refused to consider why she was being so vehement about taking care of Jeff when she'd spent the previous four months avoiding being alone with him.

When the sky started to dim into an extended fall evening, she woke Jeff up with orange juice, soup, and cold medicine. He came out of his cocoon snorting and grumbling.

"You've got a fever!" Annie realized, looking at his flushed face and feeling the heat rolling off of him even from several feet away.

"Uh, yeah," Jeff groused, downing the pills. Congestion had caused his voice to descend half an octave. "Orange juice and chicken?" he raised an eyebrow in a pathetic facsimile of his usual disdain.

"Yes," Annie said, standing over him to make sure he didn't try to rebel. "The vitamin C in the juice will help you get over this faster."

"Humph," he replied, slurping soup. Then he set the bowl down on the nightstand and looked at her with a different expression. "Thank you, Annie. No one else would do this for me." He sounded sincere.

"Oh, someone would!" she said, giving an awkward handwave meant to wordlessly encompass the rest of the study group, his family, and whatever friends he might have outside the confines of Greendale.

"No. No one would."

Annie wasn't sure how to deal with a snark-free Jeff, so she pulled her phone out of her pocket. "I guess I should call Abed," she said, sliding it open.

"It's late. You could stay, camp out on the sofa. Make sure I don't die in my sleep." Jeff gave a cough for dramatic effect that turned into a painful, drawn-out spasm.

Annie hesitated. A bizarre sleepover at Jeff's hadn't been part of her plan, but going home to an empty house didn't sound at all appealing.

Jeff settled it when he emptied the glass and bowl and flopped back down. "Do what you want. Extra sheets are in the bathroom cabinet. You might as well see your project through, though."

She was sure that she was imagining the pleading note in his voice, but decided to stay.

The linen cabinet turned out to be as well-stocked as the pantry had been bare. Annie didn't care to contemplate why Jeff felt the need to possess so many sets of high-thread-count sheets, but that didn't stop her from luxuriating in their smoothness as she tucked a flat sheet around the sofa cushions.

After finding a large stash of cheap toothbrushes still pristine in their plastic wrappers (again, she didn't want to know) and embarrassedly pulling an oversized t-shirt out of Jeff's clean laundry pile (knowing it would be impossible to sleep in a blouse and pencil skirt), she was set for the night.

Not sleepy yet, Annie sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the glass cabinet that housed Jeff's DVD collection. She smiled when she saw a few in front that bore neat "Property of Abed Nadir" labels, then sorted through the ones at the back. None of them, perturbingly, were in any discernible order.

Annie thought she'd gone through them all when she spotted one more, which had been shoved into the far back corner of the cabinet. Leaning forward and extending her arm, she tweezed it out between thumb and forefinger, brought it into the light, and looked at it curiously. It wasn't a release from any major Hollywood studio. Bearing the title_ Curious Co-Eds_, the photograph on the front luridly depicted two young women, one blonde, one brunette, locked in a passionate embrace. The blonde's hand had disappeared up the brunette's ludicrously tiny pleated skirt, Annie noticed, then she read the tagline: _"These Sapphic sweeties _(and here her inner grammarian winced at the tacky alliteration) _learn sensual lessons that can't be taught in textbooks as they discover the joys of higher education!" _

Annie frowned. She shouldn't be surprised, she supposed, that Jeff watched pornography, but -

_Oh._

She dropped the DVD case in horror and scooted away until her back hit the front of the couch, before a noise from the bedroom sent her into a panic, and she scrambled forward again, jumbling the DVDs back into the cabinet haphazardly, the offending item returned to its dark corner.

Jeff coughed, the bedroom door closed, and the light went off.


	2. Saturday

_Saturday_

Annie slept well, in spite of Jeff stumbling around and coughing hoarsely several times during the night. When she woke up at seven, he was fast asleep, and judging by the dwindling level of the cough syrup bottle and the reduced number of night-time decongestants, would now remain that way for a while.

Aside from feeling apprehensive about facing Jeff after her discovery of the previous night, she was starting to become uneasy about leaving her house empty and unattended for so long, and decided that she had to go check on things. She left a note on the refrigerator, hoping Jeff would notice it among the litter of takeout menus that were clipped there: "_Running errands. Back before 11 am. Call me if there's an emergency_."

On a whim, Annie plucked out one of the dozen guest passes to Jeff's gym that were stacked in a mail tray. She didn't think he would mind, since the oldest ones were coated in a few millimeters of dust. She knew from experience that a sedentary weekend wasn't conducive to the kind of studying she wanted to do.

At her house, she retrieved the wad of twenties and the note her mother had left her, which directed her to "_Be good! Be careful!_" Sleeping over at Jeff's would have scarcely been part of her mother's intentions, even if it did fit into Annie's personal definition of "being good."

After checking the house and flipping on a few lights, she filled a small overnight bag with toiletries and clothing, congratulating herself on her speed and efficiency.

Jeff's gym across town wasn't the kind of fluffy, feel-good, yoga-intensive retreat that Annie's mother favored during her annual self-improvement phases, but it was mostly deserted at eight on a Saturday morning. The front desk attendant, who bore no small resemblance to the repulsive Ben Stiller character in a sports movie Troy found _hilarious_ and had quoted all September (_Volleyball_? _Football_? _Dodgeball_? she'd watched part of it with Troy and Abed, but still wasn't sure), was in a talkative mood.

"Winger, eh?" he flipped over the mailer to look at the address. "Guy comes in every day, but I've never seen anyone use one of his passes. You his girlfriend?"

"No!" Annie moved away a few steps. "We're friends."

"Oooooh." He didn't even try to hide the fact he was leaning over the counter in order to better assess her. "Well, you know where to find me," he finished off with a leer as he threw her a towel.

Disgruntled, Annie stewed over the encounter while she ran on a treadmill. The inane entertainment news coverage on the TV monitors did nothing to distract her – not even the host who looked like a miniaturized, smarmier version of Jeff, whose presence on the screen was usually enough to guarantee her attention. Maybe she _should_ have said she was Jeff's girlfriend, especially if it would have garnered her enough respect not to be treated like a piece of meat. She wished she could talk to Britta or Shirley about it. Not that she could even if they were here, she realized, her frustration mounting.

She finished running, showered, and as she passed the desk on her way out, blurted, "By the way, Jeff Winger _is_ my boyfriend. Just so you know."

The guy lifted his attention from his magazine. "Good for you?" he shrugged, uncaring. "Guy's a giant douche. Want my number for when you get fed up with him?"

Annie fled, feeling like she had betrayed both Britta's principles and Jeff's friendship.

She had just parked the Lexus in Jeff's spot when her phone buzzed with a text. Sliding it open, she saw it was from Jeff. "_Where R U?_"

Remembering that she'd instructed him to call in case of emergency, she sprinted up the steps and into his apartment, heart pounding with anxiety.

"Jeff?" she called. "Are you okay?" There was an answering groan from the bedroom, which she followed. "Jeff?"

He was tossing around on the bed like a beached whale, moaning. "I need to see a doctor."

"What's wrong? I mean, what's gotten worse? Should I call 911?"

"Everything hurts, I can't breathe without blowing my nose, I'm in fucking agony here! Don't call 911, though," he added. "It's not that bad."

"Muscle aches?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Sore throat and congestion?"

A white drift of used kleenex by the bed attested to that, so she didn't wait for his answer.

"Jeff, I'm sorry, but those are the symptoms of a cold. Unless you're dehydrated or something, they can't do anything for you."

"I'm really sick!"

Annie was fairly certain that she was right, but realized she wasn't the one who was suffering, and so relented. "Emergency room?"

"No. There's a neighborhood clinic that takes appointments on the weekends. The number's taped to the side of the fridge." He blew his nose again.

Annie placed a call, then came back to Jeff's bedside. "They'll see you if we can get there in half an hour," she informed him.

"Okay."

She waited. "Well? Are you coming?"

"I was going to put on some clothes first."

"Oh!" Face blazing, she spun on her heel and left the room at a trot.

* * *

In the clinic's waiting room, among crying children and their sullen caretakers, Jeff sat with his head in his hands, and Annie had to admit that he seemed as miserable as she'd ever seen anyone look.

"I'll be out here waiting for you, okay?" Annie touched him on the shoulder, feeling the heat from his skin even through his jacket.

"Come in with me," he said.

"What? I don't think they let non-family - "

"Say we're married and they'll let you come in."

She was stunned. "Is that necessary? You'll be fine!"

"Annie, I think I'm going to puke, and I can't stand the thought of going in there alone, okay?" he hissed. "You can call me a pussy later."

Taken aback, she nodded wordlessly, then reacted to the first part of his sentence. "Puke?" she said, somewhat louder than she should have, causing several heads to turn their direction in alarm.

"Yes."

"Well, don't! Just don't!"

"Do you think I _want_ to?"

Annie subsided, then started to worry about their ruse. No one would buy them as a married couple, right? Too absurd. Still, she twisted off the little birthstone ring she wore on her right hand, and replaced it on her left ring finger.

Jeff was watching her.

"It's for verisimilitude," she huffed, feeling ridiculous.

"Mr. Winger?" a nurse called. Annie helped him up, and walked with him into the warren of examination rooms.

"I'm, um, with him," Annie explained. "I mean, we're married," she finished lamely, holding up her be-ringed hand.

"Fine." The nurse left them into a sterile room, in which the thermostat must have been set for a balmier clime. Shivering, Jeff sat on the examination table, his feet dangling an inch off the floor.

"Are you still sick to your stomach?" Annie asked, hoping that his nausea had somehow magically vanished within the last five minutes.

"Yes."

She looked around for any sort of receptacle for vomit, not trusting her own stomach if it ended up on the floor. "You could stand over the sink." She gestured toward it, suddenly understanding Shirley's dire words of the previous day, and uttering a brief, silent apology for doubting her.

"Jeff Winger?" A man's round, white-bearded face appeared around the corner of the door.

Jeff didn't answer, so Annie said, "Yes, that's him."

The man entered, bestowing a jocular smile. "I'm Dr. Adair. You are?"

"I'm Annie, Jeff's -" she hesitated, "wife," which came out in an alarmingly high, squeaky register, so she laughed, attempting to cover her awkwardness. "We just got married, so it's still kind of strange." Digging herself in deeper and deeper.

Dr. Adair chucked. "Ah, newlyweds. Did he pick up a tropical stomach bug on your honeymoon?"

"Oh, no, we've been in Greendale. We're both students, you see."

"There's plenty of things going around this fall," he nodded. "Well, let's have a look at him."

Jeff had been following the conversation, and aside from his discomfort, looked bemused and not a little annoyed.

"He's very nauseated now," Annie explained. "That's new."

"Just let me know if there's anything incoming. I've been vomited on quite a bit in my day, and it's always worse when it's an adult."

Jeff groaned.

As Dr. Adair went about examining Jeff, he directed a few questions at Annie.

"His blood pressure's higher than it should be, but that's probably because he's ill. He hasn't had any unexplained shortness of breath lately, has he?"

She shook her head – she supposed not.

"No problems achieving or maintaining an erection? That can be a side effect of high blood pressure."

Annie felt physically incapable of answering, her embarrassment was so acute.

"_No_!" Jeff bellowed, speaking for the first time since Dr. Adair had entered.

"Well, that got a reaction," the doctor laughed, but he still looked at Annie. "Is that right?"

"No – I mean, yes!" she stammered. "Everything is satisfactory. Working order." She knew Jeff was glowering at her, but she couldn't look straight at him, so she focused her attention on the torn edge of the paper covering the exam table.

"Okay, then," Dr. Adair said. "Let me get these nasal swabs analyzed to make sure he doesn't have the flu, and then we'll talk over our options. If he feels like vomiting, aim him toward the sink, please." He trotted off.

Jeff slid into a recumbent position on the examination table, his head hanging off the side.

It was only a few minutes before the doctor returned, seeming still to be in a state of amusement. "Good news and bad, as things always seem to be," he sing-songed. "He doesn't have the flu; it's just a common cold. So, Mr. Winger, I can't do anything for you there. But I can give you a shot that will alleviate the nausea and keep it at bay for quite some time. Ready?"

Jeff had lifted his head in alarm at the word "shot", and said "Uh, well..."

Annie, however, still not happy about the potential of having to clean up vomit, seized on the idea. "That sounds good. Without the nausea, he should be able to function better."

"Excellent. This one goes in the backside, so you might need to help your husband with his pants. He looks like he's pretty miserable there."

If he hadn't been so sick, the vengeful gleam in Jeff's eyes would have looked positively demonic.

Annie had to admit to herself she'd walked straight into this, so, gritting her teeth, she moved to Jeff's side, and said sweetly, "Roll over, please."

Jeff complied, settling himself on his stomach. Annie reached out to grasp the elastic waistband of his trackpants, telling herself sternly, _You can do this. It's nothing you haven't seen before_. But she couldn't do it. A few haphazard attempts at living in the moment were no match for a decade of repression, and she froze, her hands in midair on either side of Jeff's hips.

He peered back over his shoulder at her, and must have taken pity when he saw the wide-eyed look of panic she wore, because he hooked his thumbs in his waistband and gave a wiggle, exposing the tops of his buttocks, pale beneath a summer tanline.

Dr. Adair walked over to stand beside Annie, syringe in hand. "Here we go," he said, and administered the injection. Jeff winced, but held his tongue, an "I-will-suffer-in-manly-silence" expression on his face.

"Should work within fifteen minutes," the doctor nodded, satisfied. "Aside from that, keep him hydrated, give him over-the-counter decongestants as needed, and if his fever rises, put him in a cool bath. Oh, and make him stay out of your face for a few days." He wagged a finger at Annie. "He'll still be contagious. We don't want you getting sick, too. Keep whatever you do at arm's length. Or behind the back," he added cheerfully.

In a shell-shocked state that was beyond embarrassment, Annie agreed.

"It was nice meeting you two." Dr. Adair shook Annie's hand. "I always like seeing young couples making a go of it, and you seem well-matched."

* * *

Annie got Jeff out of the office and back into the car without him vomiting, and by the time they were on their way back to his apartment, his demeanor had brightened and he was taking a renewed interest in life.

"You're feeling better, aren't you?" Annie asked.

"I have enough control over my body that I know I'm not going to vomit in my car," Jeff replied grudgingly.

"You don't want to admit that I was right and the shot worked."

"_You_ wanted a chance to inspect the goods again. And I still have a cold." He coughed for emphasis.

"That is completely untrue!" Annie spat.

"Calm down. You've sufficiently proven you have only friendly interest in my person, I get it."

That wasn't true either, but she couldn't argue after having repeatedly ignored his post-Transfer-dance overtures.

They drove past a burger-oriented drive-through, and Jeff cast it a longing glance. "I could go for something to eat."

"Fifteen minutes ago you threatened to spew all over the floor. Would a burger really be a wise choice at this point?"

"Don't get too used to bossing me. I won't be sick forever."

As much as she didn't want to, Annie felt that she had to confess to what she'd done that morning. It didn't mesh with the code of friendship she'd established for herself, and she knew it would torture her until she admitted to it. "I used one of your guest passes to your gym this morning. I hope you weren't saving them up for something else, but I'm not used to sitting around for so long. I needed to get out."

"No problem. I was going to throw them out anyway."

"The guy who's at the front desk in the mornings? Dark hair, mustache?"

"Bruce? Has "douchebag" practically tattooed on his forehead?"

"Funny, that's what he said about you."

Jeff harrumphed. "What about him?"

"He - " she thought through the accepted slang terminology, rejecting anything that sounded like something Pierce would say. "He hit on me."

Jeff scowled, but said nothing.

"I hated it, so I told him I was your girlfriend. He did ask! I felt safer saying that, and I'm sorry, I know it wasn't the right thing to do, and if he asks, you can say you dumped me. I'm so sorry, Jeff." She got through it quickly, wondering if this was how Catholics felt at confession.

"Why are you apologizing to me?"

"Because, well, because I used your name and your reputation for my own benefit. Without your permission."

"First of all, you did it to get that asshole to shut up. Pretty sure that falls under the 'obligatory friendship favors' category. Second, no guy in his right mind would complain about you claiming to be his girlfriend."

Annie was flattered and confused and relieved, all at once. Then she remembered the DVD she'd found the night before, and confusion became predominant. Mind wandering, she took a turn too fast, squealing the tires a bit, and Jeff protested.

"Whoa, what the hell are you doing? Just when I thought I could trust you to drive my car."

"Are you _patting_ the dashboard?"

"No." He yanked his hand back. "Ten and two," he said, scrutinizing her hands on the wheel.

"When it comes to damaging your precious car, I think you have more to fear from ex Spanish teachers with keytars than you do from me."

"As I recall, that was your fault too. Indirectly." Jeff was smiling.

That made Annie think of the rest of the group, and how they might react to the knowledge that she'd spent most of the weekend at Jeff's. She decided that there was no good reason for them to know, and that she'd discuss it with Jeff. Later.

After lunch, Jeff camped out in front of the TV with a box of kleenex and a bottle of cough syrup, and Annie settled down to some serious studying. After she finished all of her work, she started on Jeff's Comparative Religions assignment, determining that it was ethically sound to help him out (or really, do it all) just this once. She got so absorbed in the material that she scarcely noticed that Jeff had stopped contributing intermittent comments to the process, or that he'd gone back in his room. By the time she'd done enough additional research to determine that there was crossover potential for her own upcoming Anthropology research paper, it was late afternoon, and she hadn't heard from Jeff for at least an hour.

Annie clicked her laptop shut and went to peek around the corner of the open bedroom door. Jeff had kicked all the covers off the bed, and although asleep, was twitching and muttering. His hair was dark with sweat, and she didn't need a thermometer to realize he was running a fever.

"Jeff!" she poked at him with a fingertip. When that yielded no results, she tried again, harder this time.

"What?" he croaked, still managing to sound offended.

"Fever," she said. "You should probably get in a cool bath."

"No." He rolled over, his back toward her.

Annie sighed and knelt on the bed to shake his shoulder. "Get up. You need to bring your fever down, and your t-shirt's soaked through with sweat. It's gross."

Jeff flopped onto his back. "Okay, if you'll leave me alone then," he mumbled, out of it.

"I promise, I will. I'll go start the bath."

Bending over the tub, Annie heard footsteps behind her and a rustle of fabric. Behind her, Jeff had arrived in, as her grandmother would have delicately put it, in a state of nature, and was squinting into the light, clearly somewhat disoriented.

Annie's first instinct was to fling her arm over her eyes and melodramatically ask the universe about the source of the karmic retribution that had placed her in so many embarrassing situations. But a smaller, but still emphatic, part of her brain (the part responsible for the fact that when she had previously been in a very similar circumstance, she had taken a good, long look) was telling her that _real_ karmic retribution would have been to be in this room with someone like Pierce, and that she should enjoy what the universe was being so generous as to throw her way.

So she took the middle route, and standing up, focused her gaze somewhere over Jeff's left shoulder. "Jeff, you're naked," she informed him.

"I'm going to take a bath," he responded reasonably.

"_I'm_ in here still."

"You could leave."

Annie did, seeing no point in arguing, but she had to return in ten minutes to fish him out again, racked with chills and his teeth chattering.

"You're kind of a lot of trouble when you're sick," she grumbled, tucking him back in bed.

"Sorry, Annie," he said contritely.

She wasn't sure whether she found a pliant, docile Jeff alarming or appealing, but tended toward the former. She missed his acerbic, sarcastic manner, and decided that him being willing to do her bidding wasn't worth it.

Jeff was still mumbling something, most of it incomprehensible. Annie doubted it was entirely due to fever delirium, given the dent he'd put that afternoon in an economy-sized bottle of cough syrup with a high alcohol content.

Whatever it was, it was loosening Jeff's tongue in alarming ways. "You're so nice, Annie," he said with a sigh that turned into a cough. "So pretty."

Annie melted a little at that, even if he did look ridiculous just then, with a fleece blanket wrapped entirely around his head and held under his chin like a particularly unfashionable monk.

He turned so that most of his face was buried in a pillow, and carried on with his train of thought. "Such amaaaaaazing boobs. Just...really...great..."

Jeff was snoring.

* * *

After a day like the one she'd had, Annie felt desperately in need of distraction, so she sorted through Jeff's DVDs again (this time steering clear of any in the back) and watched the lightest, most feel-good films she could find one after the other: _The Princess Bride_, _Mean Girls_, _Rushmore_, and _Harold and Maude _(the last two were Abed's, and weren't nearly as feel-good as she might have liked).

By the time she'd watched herself into a state of mindless exhaustion, it was two am – far later than she usually stayed up, unless it was finals week, a paper was due, she had an important presentation to give – okay, so she often stayed up that late, but not watching movies.

The result of her night of cinematic debauchery was that she slept through, uninterrupted, until past ten the following morning, and was only awakened by –


	3. Sunday

_Sunday_

- the sound of pounding on Jeff's door, and two female voices conversing from behind it.

Very familiar female voices. Shirley and Britta's voices.

Annie scrambled off the couch, panicking, in no mood to discover the other women's reaction to the fact that she was staying at Jeff's, no matter how humanitarian her reasons. For a moment she considered ignoring their increasingly loud knocks and calling them later to inform them that Jeff was okay, but then the doorknob rattled and clicked, and she recalled that both of them were frighteningly adept at picking locks.

She got to the door right as it swung open, and just avoided having it hit her in the face.

When she saw Annie, Shirley almost dropped the foil-covered dishes she was carrying, and Britta definitely shrieked. Just a little, and the kind of throaty shriek that of course Britta _would_ give, one that made Annie's breathy, little-girl scream sound even sillier by comparison.

It was noisy there for a minute.

"What are you doing here, Annie?" Shirley broke in first, cutting through the nonsense.

"Visiting, like you are," she said, wide-eyed. "Checking on Jeff. He's sick," she informed them unnecessarily.

"Wearing that?" Britta gave her the once-over.

Annie remembered what she was wearing: Jeff's t-shirt that she'd first requisitioned on Friday night, the one with a neck hole so big that it kept slipping over one shoulder, and with a hem so short that it brushed the tops of her bare thighs.

"Oh, this?" she began.

"Why are you wearing Jeff's clothes?" Britta pressed. Shirley nodded in agreement.

"It's mine! My shirt!" Annie lied desperately.

"Your Denver Broncos t-shirt." Britta repeated, a dangerous edge to her voice.

"Yes! I'm a big fan!"

"Your Denver Broncos t-shirt, with "Winger" written on the back of the neck?"

Annie almost gave herself whiplash jerking her neck around, but sure enough, where the neckline had slipped forward and low on her shoulder, she could read "Winger" written in Jeff's sloppy printing.

Just when she thought things couldn't get worse, the bedroom door opened and Jeff shuffled across the hall to the bathroom. At first, he seemed unaware of the additional visitors in his apartment, but Shirley's high-decibel gasp must have alerted him, because he froze halfway between the two rooms, and turned slowly to face them.

At least he was clothed.

Barely.

Jeff lifted a hand in greeting. "Hey, guys," he said, the pitch of his voice betraying his illness, but mostly (to Annie's ears, at least) sounding ridiculously deep and appealing.

He didn't wait for a response before he continued on to the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Shirley's head was tilted to the side, Abed-like. "How many pairs of those tiny little striped underpants can one man own?" she asked with a thoughtful frown.

Britta, who hadn't been shy about getting an eyeful, still wasn't that easily sidetracked. She whirled back to Annie and demanded, "What exactly is going on?"

"Okay, you want to know what's going on? I'll tell you!" Anne flung out her arms and leaned forward. "Jeff is sick, and no one but me even cared! I've stayed here with him and taken care of him and fed him and taken him to the doctor" (she strategically avoided telling them that that had probably been pointless) "and made sure he didn't have to be sick and suffer alone! Sometimes I think I'm the only one in this group who's really willing to work, and not just stand around and make sympathetic clucking noises!"

Shirley's face fell at that, and Annie immediately felt bad.

"I'm sorry you guys, I didn't mean it like that." Tears were welling up in spite of herself.

"Oh, honey." Shirley looked around for the nearest flat surface to put down her dishes, settled on the table, and then folded Annie in her arms.

Britta looked a little tearful herself before she joined them. "I'm sorry too, Annie," she admitted. "I think I exploded at you because I've been feeling so guilty about the way I cut and ran. I've been trying not to do that, and just when my friends needed me, I abandoned them."

They sniffled together for a few moments, and then Shirley's voice hardened. "Just so long as there isn't any creepy Abishag stuff going on here."

Britta drew away. "Abishag?"

Shirley shook her head in mild exasperation, but explained. "In the Bible. She was a young girl who tended to old king David when he was sick, even slept in his bed to keep him warm. Weird and disturbing."

Annie had heard the story before at some point, and didn't care for the comparison.

"I'm not some lecherous old man from ancient times!" Jeff yelled from behind the bathroom door.

"Then come out and face us like a man!" Britta yelled back.

"Sick, remember? Getting in the shower now." They heard the rush of water from the bathroom.

All reconciled, Britta helped Annie put away the sheets from her makeshift couch bed while Shirley stocked the refrigerator with the tidbits she'd brought to tempt an invalid's appetite.

When Jeff still hadn't emerged from the bathroom, Shirley announced that she had to get back home. "Want us to drop you off at your house, Annie?"

"No, I'll stay here for a while longer, and call Abed this afternoon."

Shirley aimed her voice for the bathroom door. "We're leaving, Jeff, but you need to be thankful you've got a friend like Annie. Not many young women would give up their weekend to take care of someone as difficult as you. And you'd better bring my dishes back to me. I'm expecting a thank-you note when you get better," she finished darkly.

Jeff stuck his head around the bathroom door jam, face covered in shaving foam. "I know, Shirley," he said, earnest for once. "Thank you."

As she and Shirley left, Britta hung back for a moment to speak to Annie. "Sometimes I think you're the most adult one out of all of us." She gave a rueful smile.

"Thank you, Britta." They shared a side-hug that was only somewhat awkward.

"Make sure Jeff knows he owes you," Britta called back over her shoulder. "Big time."

Alone again, and her clothes still in the bathroom where Jeff seemed to have taken up permanent residence, Annie was left to huddle on the couch under the tent-like protection of the t-shirt. Bored, she started flipping through one of Jeff's _Men's Health_ magazines, and just as she was attempting not to unfavorably compare the fitness models with Jeff –

"See something in there you like?" he smirked, standing over her shoulder.

Annie slapped the glossy covers together and dropped the magazine back on the coffee table. "You don't have a very diverse selection of reading material in here," she dodged.

At least Jeff had put his excessive time in the bathroom to good use: his grooming, Annie decided, was back up to its usual standard. "Are you feeling better?" she asked.

"Yeah." He walked around and sprawled on the couch next to her. "Slept through the night without waking up choking for the first time in a few days."

Annie drew her knees together primly. "Well, it was certainly nice of you to leave me to deal with Shirley and Britta."

"Sounded like you were doing fine to me. Congratulations on that, by the way. You worked them around masterfully. Couldn't have done it any better myself."

"Unlike you, I wasn't trying to manipulate people. They're my friends, and we had a misunderstanding, and we figured it out." She was indignant.

Jeff just looked at her. "You may think our motivations are different, but the end results are the same: we get what we want."

She squirmed, uncomfortable as always when Jeff said something that she didn't want to hear but kind of had to believe was true anyway. "Their being upset was silly, anyway. I mean, can you imagine anything, well, _untoward_ happening while you were so sick? We can't even kiss!" Annie laughed lightly (nervously) as if to emphasize the absurdity of the situation, then wondered what had possessed her to embark on such a dangerous subject.

"Hmmm, I don't know," Jeff said, raising an eyebrow. "There's plenty of things that can be done at – what was it the doctor said? Arm's reach?" He brushed a finger over her ankle. "This, for example."

Annie was suddenly breathless and dry-mouthed.

His hand continued upward to her knee. "This." Where the t-shirt ended on her thighs. "This." Higher still.

Annie was well aware of what fingering was, and had been for years, thank-you-very-much. "_That slut got fingered in her parent's bedroom during a kegger_," the rumor-mongers had whispered about one girl in high school. Or, as per an old acquaintance, "_Of course I didn't let him! We've only gone out once!_" It wasn't something that happened to Annie Edison, but anyway, she had strictly determined that it was an activity only suitable for established relationships.

None of that explained why, when Jeff began touching her through her panties, she parted her thighs instead of protesting, and when he slid one of his long fingers inside her she moaned. If she had been at all capable in that moment of analyzing her reasoning, it probably would have been as simple as this: it felt amazing, and for once in her life, she didn't care about anything else.

"See? Still arm's length," Jeff said quietly, slicking in another finger and rubbing her with his thumb in a way that she was sure was making her lose her mind. He curled his fingers forward inside her, stroking in a way she hadn't known was possible. It was almost too much, and her hands scrabbled helplessly for purchase against the leather sofa cushions even as she canted her hips forward to give him better access.

"Do you like this?" Jeff smiled a little, his eyes intent.

She wished he would stop talking, but he stilled his hand until she panted out, "Yes!" and he relented, pushing his thumb against her in firm circles until her whole body stiffened, caught up in a bright, hot wave. He kept his fingers inside her, working her through it, intensifying it, until she finally came down, slumped backward, her damp cheek clinging stickily to the leather upholstery.

Annie realized then that Jeff was still watching her with a look of smug satisfaction. He pulled his hand away from her and matter-of-factly wiped off his wet fingers with a tissue, making Annie shift her gaze, embarrassed.

When she thought she could speak without her voice trembling, she sat up and asked, "Why did you do that?"

"It probably be the wrong to say that it was my way of thanking you for taking care of me this weekend, wouldn't it?"

Annie pulled away, hurt at his flippancy, but before she could escape, Jeff caught her wrist in his hand. "Annie, wait. I'm sorry." He shook his head. "See, I'm an asshole."

She was blinking rapidly, trying to make sense of what was going on, and telling herself viciously _not_ to cry, _not_ to get emotional, as Jeff wrapped an arm around her and drew her close beside him.

"You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I like you a lot, Annie, and besides that? You're gorgeous. I can't keep my hands off of you. Shirley was right, I am a filthy old man."

"Not an _old_ man," she protested.

"But maybe filthy?"

"Possibly." The corners of her lips had quirked into a smile.

"Yeah, about that." Looking down at her, Jeff pulled a sheepish face. "I think I was pretty out of it last night. Did I say anything...well, anything?"

"You did mention liking my breasts."

"They are a very likable attribute," he agreed solemnly.

On the coffee table, Annie's phone vibrated, and she leaned forward for it. "It's Abed," she said. "He wants to know when he should come pick me up."

Jeff pulled her back against him and leaned his chin on the top of her head. "Sometime soon. Or else you'll get infected in spite of our best efforts."

"It would be a bad idea to miss any classes," she nodded, her face pressed against his chest.

* * *

_Tuesday/Epilogue _

"Here's how I see it," Pierce explained to all of them. "Troy didn't get the short end of the stick, because he actually got to make out with – what's her name?"

"Margaret," Annie supplied.

"Is she okay now? Has anyone heard?" Shirley inquired.

"I saw her in the cafeteria this morning, making googly eyes at one of the other football players," Annie answered. "Troy, were you aware of that?"

"If you think I'm getting back with _that_ again, you're thinking wrong."

"Back on topic, people!" Pierce slapped his hand on the tabletop. "As I was saying, Troy got the benefit of making out – possibly more than making out, _was _there more than making out?"

"Gross, dude."

"Anyway, with a hot cheerleader. Jeff just got second-hand germs (in a very homosexual way, I might add), and therefore spent all weekend sick without having derived any benefit from it."

"Annie acted as his unpaid servant all weekend, doesn't that count for anything?" Britta scoffed.

While Pierce was considering, Annie interjected, "Yeah, but Abed did practically the same thing for Troy when he was sick."

Everyone looked at Abed for affirmation. "This is true," he nodded.

"That settles it," Pierce said happily. "For once, Winger got good and shafted. Sick all weekend, no action to show for it, and admittedly, while Annie's a lot nicer to look at than Abed here, I doubt he was able to appreciate it. This weekend at least, Jeff, you were the loser. May I also inform you all that I had a terrific time with my mother, and that she's setting me up with one of her friend's granddaughters?"

"No, you may not," Jeff cringed. "Now I feel sick again."

"Are you gonna just let that go unchallenged, though?" Britta asked him. "Pierce thinks you're a loser."

"This time?" Jeff smiled graciously around the table, gaze lingering for a moment on Annie. "I'm okay with it."

"You need to get sick more often. It improves your attitude," Shirley said.

"Yeaaaah," Britta drawled, looking suspicious.

"He was in a very good mood when I picked Annie up on Sunday," Abed contributed. "Euphoric, one might even say."

"Are you on drugs, man?" Troy asked. "Happy pills?"

Britta shook her head. "It's too weird."

Annie coughed.


End file.
